Blog Post #10: Happy Holidays After a Great Semester!

I enjoyed looking at other students’ blogs because it wasn’t responding to each other JUST about school. It was nice to see other peoples’ lives and that they’re busy, stressed, happy, sad, etc too. The other thing I liked about it is that the class did not allow for a lot of peer to peer communication during class, which is definitely normal for college courses, but the blogs really allowed the classroom to feel like we knew each other even when we didn’t talk. It was also fun to try to figure out who was who… I enjoyed it quite a bit more than I thought I would.

I’m interested to see where technology will go next. It’s weird though because when new things come out, I sometimes don’t want to cross over and it makes me feel like one of those old people that cant adjust to the changes, or when someone loses their job to a younger person for lack of knowledge of the new skills needed. It’s hard though, it’s like you learn something and then they’re out with something new! I guess technology related, I’m especially interested in the new cars coming out. I really hope a hybrid truck can be invented because someday (when gas isn’t a hog), I’d like to have my own truck.. I guess my car will do for now haha

I think I need to accept the changes -- I usually do, it just takes some time. When I bought an iPod at the beginning of 2006, it took me a year to actually start putting my OWN music on it. For the longest time I was just letting my friend add everything he had on his onto mine -- so none of it was really my music, but I just didn’t feel like learning how to do it because it was being difficult keeping his songs and adding my own. I finally just deleted all of his and began adding my own. It’s hard because our generation doesn’t like to read directions and I find that when I start to get frustrated with something I don’t want it anymore haha It’s okay, I’m learning…

Happy Holidays to All!

Blog Post #9: Presidential Candidates!

The web-based tool I would use while teaching a high school level history or government class is http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460 up until an election. Of course it may not be able to be used every year as presidential candidates are not heavily discussed every year. However, the year before presidential elections, I think would be a valuable time to teach students not only about the candidates, but also about the importance of looking at all the candidates, the issues/their stances, their experience, etc. It will also help students discover which party they tend to lean towards.

I feel that a tool like this is important because while many Americans have the opportunity to vote, quite a few choose not to. I find the reason for this is lack of knowledge about the candidates. I think a tool like this emphasizes the importance of considering each candidate, each issue, and how they feel about both. If students learn this at a younger age, there is a better chance of adults voting in the future.

The next technology-related skill I would like to learn is mostly just to use excel with greater ease. I find excel to be an extremely valuable program that can be used for many different things. I hope to become much more skilled with it as I continue to use it because I think it could help organize basically ANYthing and can be advantageous in any profession. To continue learning about excel, I hope to use it to organize things such as the financial preparation for a trip, college tuition budgeting, etc.

Blog Post #8: Viruses & Ethics!

Chapter 8 begins with a portion about computer security issues such as viruses, hackers, theft, system failure, etc. Viruses sends a code through the computer and “spreads to any program that accesses the infected file.” Another form of a virus is a worm which gets in a computers memory or network and copies itself repeatedly forcing the computer to potentially shut down. Hackers are people who break into other peoples computers with the intentions of theft or corruption of data. Theft has been a difficult problem in many public places, unfortunately including schools. Although there are some ways to prevent theft, it is becoming increasingly difficult with the popularity of portable equipment. Computer ethics are general moral guidelines for the use of computers, and especially the internet. In schools, it is important to prevent the ability of students to access various objectionable material with teacher observation, parental controls, filters, educational controls, etc. There is consistently emerging technologies today that also help in the classroom. First, the web has been supportive of many classroom activities, research, etc. The classroom has become filled with much more digital media than ever.

I found our final project to be beneficial because it really culminated a lot of the things we did this year. It made us really think about the classroom as a whole like a professional teacher. Our plan was for a marketing class and their assignment was to create an add for a new or newly developed product. It was hard because there’s so many potential things that could better the students’ learning experience, and more importantly, many things the basic classroom needed us to purchase for the students as it was rather bare when we started. It was interesting “pitching” an idea to the fictional principal, and I like to make PowerPoint’s!

Finally done with exams and it feels GREAT!! I’m really excited to start the new semester and see how my classes are… I had a great semester with a new job and involvement in a lot of organizations I wasn’t involved in last year. I am burnt out though and definitely ready to head home for the holidays!

Blog Post #7: Extra Credit

Evaluating educational technology is just the idea that instructors must determine the “value or judge [the] worth” and the appropriateness of a piece of technology before it is used as a teaching method. It’s important, as the book mentions several times, to evaluate the technology before, during and after instruction, along with making an necessary revisions. Teachers should look to “material from school districts, state Departments of Education, professional educational organizations, hardware and software catalogs, recommendations of colleagues, published evaluations, technology conferences, and Web sites” for new educational software.

I found the excel project to be useful because it made me realize how many types of information could really be organized in this program. Excel is a really easy way to make information look really organized as it offers many different ways to illustrate the information: basic spreadsheet, graphs, charts, color/font/etc, and even graphics to make it kinda pretty! Haha Although I do prefer the Office 2007 version of excel, the program in general is great to use for a lot of things.

I am so ready for school to be over, it’s disgusting. I had a lot more on my plate this semester than my first two in the line of organization/job involvement. I’m excited to get home to my family and friends in NY!!!